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I believe mango is another candidate for a word that's nearly the same in many languages. Like chai vs tea, the two words (that I know of) are aam and mango.
by u801e 3y ago
I believe mango is another candidate for a word that's nearly the same in many languages. Like chai vs tea, the two words (that I know of) are aam and mango.
- wizofaus 3y agoYep, "mango" is surprisingly consistent across every language I checked, but in Bengali and possibly quite a few other similar widely spoken languages it's different. Whereas "sushi" I haven't found a language using a distinct word for so far.
- jononomo 3y agoThat's because sushi doesn't exist in any other language
- eru 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbap is pretty close. An English speaker would likely use 'sushi' to things that Koreans would call 'Gimbap'.
- bobthepanda 3y agoIn parts of the US with large korean communities, gimbap is its name, if only because the ingredient list is so different. Sushi, for the most part, is seafood raw, and gimbap often has heavily marinated beef or other non-fish meat.
- wizofaus 3y agoSushi is a method of preparing rice with vinegar, usually then eaten with Nori (seaweed), and often combined with other ingredients that may or may not include fish, either raw or cooked (and then served as 'finger' food). The sushi that's most often sold outside Japan is in the form of "California rolls", which I'd say rarely include raw fish (but often includes ingredients almost never seen in sushi found in Japan, like avocado or smoked salmon or cooked chicken etc.). But the sushi rice itself is what makes it sushi.
- eru 3y ago> In parts of the US with large korean communities, gimbap is its name, if only because the ingredient list is so different. Yes. But if you put an authentic Korean gimbap in front of your average English speaker, they'll call it Sushi.
- Izkata 3y agoIt's not mentioned on that page, but check out "sushi roll" for a more specific English term.
- numpad0 3y agoLooks like they semi-artificially replaced a loanword with a crafted name than the same thing existed.
- eru 3y agoOh, true. But it's still a different word for (something like) Sushi. When 19th century Germans talked about railways, they mostly used English loanwords. But gradually most of those have been replaced with more 'native' creations.
- wizofaus 3y agoI tried that theory with quite a few things that didn't "exist" per se in Chinese, yet there were distinct Chinese words for them. Plus there are plenty of food items from other cultures where we tend to use a native equivalent in English (spring rolls, rice paper rolls, sweet and sour pork, Swedish meatballs etc). Though to be fair we tend just to borrow the word wholesale. Not sure to what degree other languages have consistently done the same.
- u801e 3y agoI don't speak or understand Bengali and can't read the written form either, but when looking it up on Google translate, I got the following result: আম or Āma which is similar to the Hindi/Urdu word Aam (आम in Devanagari script) (آم in Urdu script).
- wizofaus 3y agoYes, which is still reasonably different to "mango".
- u801e 3y agoIn my first comment, I wrote: >> Like chai vs tea, the two words (that I know of) are aam and mango. I was referring to either aam or mango being a word that's common in many languages throughout the world, like chai and tea. So, আম or Āma is similar enough to Aam (आम or آم).
- umeshunni 3y agoI think OP was saying that similar to the words Tea/Chai that originated from different parts of China and spread to the rest of the world, the words Aam (from Indo-Aryan) and Mango (from Dravidian) originated in different parts of India and spread to rest of the world.
- eru 3y ago> Whereas "sushi" I haven't found a language using a distinct word for so far. Actually, there is: Japanese (and Korean)! The English word 'sushi' can be translated into Japanese as 'sushi' or 'sashimi' or even 'gimbap'. (Careful English speakers also use the borrowings 'sashimi' and 'gimbap' etc, but casual English speakers will refer to all of these and more as just 'sushi'.) Similar to how Kindergarten means different things in English and German.
- denysvitali 3y agohttps://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/german-english/kindergarten https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/german-english/k... Am I missing something?
- eru 3y agoYou are missing the subtleties. Perhaps simpler: naively German Brot and English bread are the same words. Similar for German Kuchen and English Cake. But there are lots of things that an English speaker might call bread, that a German speaker might call Kuchen. (Brioche might be one such example.)
- MandieD 3y agoKindergarten to Americans: when most children start elementary school, usually age 5 (maybe 6 if their parents didn’t think they were quite ready), Grade 0. What Germans would call “Vorschuljahr” (last year of Kindergarten, where there’s less play and more learning how to count, recognize letters, and sit still at a table) Kindergarten to Germans: usually its own establishment, available but not mandatory from age 3, usually has fees in the 200 EUR/mo range for all day with hot lunch (with further subsidies for poorer families), rather like an American preschool for ages 3-5, with the 5-6 year (“Vorschuljahr”) being more like American kindergarten.
- denysvitali 3y agoThe Kindergarten to Germans you're describing seems like the "Kita": https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertagesst%C3%A4tte https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertagesst%C3%A4tte - but the whole education system is very confusing and it's generally not language-specific but more culturally specific AFAIK
- russellsprouts 3y agoIn Korean, sushi is 초밥 (cho-bap)
- wizofaus 3y agoBut does that actually refer to exactly what would be called "sushi" in other languages?
- albert_e 3y agoand "aam" also means commonplace in Hindi ... probably just a coincidence but interesting nevertheless
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]